Literary Lens In Jamaca Kincaid's A Small Place

When you hear the term lens, you probably think of something you look through. Literary lenses let the reader of a book view stories differently based on the lens. Marxist lens provides the understanding of social status and how it affects the economy. Psychological lens, on the other hand, gives us an insight on how the author feels about their writing, and their purpose. Lastly, Archetypal lens help the writing appeal to all writers and readers, by using universal gestures. In A Small Place, by Jamacia Kincaid, she tries to get her readers to understand the importance of having different perspectives, instead of having a single view point.

Looking through a Marxist lens helps the readers understand how different social classes get

In an archetypal lens, there are many universal gestures that any reader would know, which will help them understand the plot. Analyzing Kincaid's writing can helps us understand not only the emotions she feels, but also a reoccuring theme we can all relate to. It doesn't surprise us how much hate she has towards the "tourist," because the way she talks reminds us how everyone has different mannerisms and when we see these different ways of doing things, it can be alarming, and will possibly want us to shut them out. "An ugly thing that is what you are when you become a tourist, an ugly, empty thing, a stupid thing,a piece of rubbish pausing here and there to gaze at this, and see that, and it will never occur to you that the people who inhabit the place in which you have just paused cannot stand you, that behind their closed doors they laugh at your strangeness (you do not look the way they look); the physical sight of you does not please them; you have bad manners (it is their custom to eat their food with their hands; you try eating their way, you look silly; you try eating the way you eat, you look silly); they do not like the way you speak (you have an accent); they collapse helplessly from laughter, mimicking the way they imagine you must look as you carry out some everyday bodily function." (Kincaid 17). The tourists are automatically on the outside according to

Looking through a Marxist lens helps us see things from a social standpoint. The Psychological lens grabs the reader's attention with the author's emotion, which helps the reader understand her purpose of writing. Finally, looking through an Archetypal lens gives the reader an opportunity to really see what the author is talking about through world wide or common archetypes. Being able to see things in different ways with the help of these lenses, help the readers keep an open mind and not close ourselves off to the ideas of others. The reader become more invested, because of all the extra details they are able to learn through all of the